I Hate My Brother (editing!)

11.

"Why didn't you sit with us during lunch?"

"Can't I sit elsewhere?"

"I don't mean it that way, Kel. Your friends were there, why didn't you come over?"

I scoff, resisting the urge for an eye-roll. The six of us are seated in a japanese restaurant at the mall nearby campus. I managed to occupy my hours by sitting in several random lectures while the rest of them had their own classes. By 5:30, we gathered at the foyer to take a short walk for dinner.

"From the looks of it, I say they're friends with y'all instead of me." I blow at my spoonful of chawanmushi. Damn, japanese food will be the ultimate death of me.

We have a table full of platters of sushi and sashimi. Carson isn't a fan of raw food, hence he's the only one with a bento set.

"Bro, you're missing out. Look at how thick this salmon slice is," Drew holds his chopsticks in the air, waving the piece of orange meat in Carson's face.

Carson lets out a grunt, but remains quiet nonetheless. I think he's probably uncomfortable eating japanese, especially when it was Cass' and my decision to pick the place and he might have been too nice to object it. All I've seen him eat for the past week was fast food, fast food and more fast food.

"Is it not to your liking?" I question, feeling slightly selfish for not consulting the rest of their opinion prior to dashing here.

But can you blame me? Sushi is life.

"Don't worry," Zac chuckles lightly and I turn to my right to face him. He has been keeping to himself mostly for the past few days. In fact I find it weird that he's talking now all of a sudden. "Carson doesn't eats fish. Or any other seafood."

"Is he allergic?" I catch Drew and Wayne chuckling too, while Carson focuses his gaze on his teriyaki chicken rice with a deep frown.

"No, he's not."

"Tell us the story!" Cass squeals in anticipation. It took her some time to shake off her solemn mood from our lunch episode, but by the time her classes ended, she was back to her cheerful self.

I look up to see Carson squirm in discomfort, handling his food roughly. Clearly this is going to embarrass him as the other three guys laugh it off.

"Alright, alright." Zac begins. "So when we younger, like nine or ten, we followed our grandparents when they went on a fishing trip. We were at a lake, fishing with our kiddy rods. For some reason, Carson actually reeled in a small catfish within twenty minutes and we kept it alive in a pail. By the time we got home, he sat beside Wally the catfish and spent hours there watching it until our mum nagged at him to move his ass. Then dinner was served and Carson came skipping down, passing by the dining table into the kitchen where he noticed the pail was gone. He began searching around the house, calling out Wally's name and nobody knew what he was looking for; they assumed it's a toy or so. Mum got irritated by him shortly after and made him sit down for dinner. We were having steamed fish that night and mum commented that the meat was incredibly fresh, since she only killed it minutes before cooking it instead of the rest of granny's usual catch which were left to die out of water once caught. At that point, we didn't sensed anything out of the norm, until mum questioned why was the fish the only one in the pail. Carson's face instantly paled and he spat out the food in his mouth, looking like his eyes were bulging out of its sockets. He couldn't say a word and kept shoving his fist down his throat, then he started to cry and kept repeating the name 'Wally'. No doubt little Carson was traumatized and skipped dinner that night. From then on, he never eats fish again."

Cass and I burst out giggling while my brother wraps an arm around a grumpy looking Carson's shoulder.

"Really, Zacson? Is this the eleventh time you've recited this story to embarrass me?" Carson glares at Zac who's sitting opposite him.